A colonnade led from the court onto a wide terrace. Tall alabaster lamps burned a soft light that turned the darkness more blue by contrast, and in the midst of this glow was a scene such as painters strive to capture for the walls of palaces.
There were two girls with her, both half-lying on the rugs and cushions spread before her chair. The nearer girl played a rectangular eastern harp, the notes visibly running off like water as the lamps flickered on its disturbed silver strings. She was a Masrian, amber skinned, with black curling hair about her jeweled shoulders, and she wore the jacket and the flounced skirt of the Masrian lady, in a shade of bronze satin that seemed to match the hair of the other girl. Though tanned, this one was clearly of different blood, those bronze tresses of hers falling smooth like a wave over her breasts and the black Masrian clothes, that in turn complemented the musician’s black ringlets. Like a couple of beautiful paired hounds, they reclined at the feet of the woman seated behind them.
I had remembered her imperfectly. It is hard to carry such an image about with one intact, like trying to memorize a landscape, every flower and stone and blade of grass. There is some feature one would mislay, something forgotten.
She wore copper silk and a necklace of heavy gold, but that I scarcely saw. She was listening to the harp music, her eyes half shut and far away, idly caressing the bronze hair of the foreign girl who leaned against her knee. The face of
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Malmiranet would tell you many, many things, but you would not be certain which of them were true, until she chose that you should know.
The last note fluttered from the harp. It had been a strange melody, neither glad nor sorrowing. The Masrian bowed her head, the other girl lifted hers, and Malmiranet, bending sinuously, kissed her intently on the mouth, which set my blood fairly racing.
Yasholm and I had paused in the shadow of the wall, I to gape, he, I will presume, for courtesy.
Now Malmiranet rose, the lampshine snaking down the length of her silks. She came along the terrace lightly, stopped by a pillar maybe four feet from us, and said, looking out at the night, “Can it be my illustrious husband has sent someone to murder me at last?”
There was something essentially dangerous about her, like a coiled serpent, all immaculate immobility; till it strikes.
Yashlom went straight up to her, bowed, and held out the ring Sorem had given him.
She took it without a word, examined it, and gazed before her. Her face had hardly changed, but she said, “As bad as this?”
“As bad, madam,” Yashlom said. She was as tall as he. I recalled her eyes had been nearly level with my own.
“No more questions, then,” she said, and turned to look at her women. They had stood up, and were waiting for whatever she might command. Both were very beautiful, but, beside her, like a painting of fire beside the furnace.
“You hear Captain Yashlom,” she said to them. “Is the wine jar ready, Nasmet?”
The Masrian girl smiled slyly.
“I will see it is, Empress.”
“And you, Isep, you had better go, too.”
“Yes, my Empress.”
The other girl bowed deeply, and both slipped away between the columns, with a clinking of bracelets.
“Madam,” Yashlom said, “we should leave here at once.”
“I beg your pardon, Captain,” Malmiranet said, “but that is the only thing we must not do.”
“Your son-” Yashlom began.
She broke in with a gentle insistence. “My son would tell you that in this you must be guided by me. Did you notice five fools kicking their heels in the Fish Court above? My husband, Captain, has increased his guard over me for the
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first time in years, influenced, no doubt, by Prince Basnurmon’s caution. To leave dead Crimson Palace men about the grounds after we quit them would be a pity, since the midnight patrol would find their bodies and an outcry follow. Nasmet and Isep are intelligent girls. They have become acquainted with the guards against just such a possibility as this ring you gave me. We will have to wait perhaps the third portion of an hour. Please be seated.”
“Madam-” Yashlom began again.
“Yashlom,” she said, “two lovely young women and a jar of drugged wine will deal with five guards surely and discreetly. Far more so than the knives you and your comrade would attempt to insert, however subtly, in their backs.”
“Are your women to be trusted?” Yashlom asked.
“Completely.”
Her conviction carried him and he said nothing else, and sat down when she again requested him to. At any rate, her girls had titled her “Empress,” which would be neither common nor unbrave, things standing as they did.
She had taken no note of me, very likely thinking me some subaltern of Yashlom’s.
Now I said, “What of the guard in the courtyard, is he to be drugged also?”
She turned around again and came over to where I stood, not seeing me yet for the darkness beyond the lamps.
“You needn’t fear for Porsus. We’re old friends, he and I. I have left this place occasionally in the past, with his connivance.”
Yashlom was seated at the end of the terrace, minding his own business, so I moved out where she could see me.
“I was wondering how you managed it, that night you sought me in the Palm Quarter.”
She caught her breath and took a step back, as if finding me like this frightened her.
“What’s this?” she said. “Not gone, as I suggested, from Bar-Ibithni?”
“You should ask Basnurmon,” I said, “as to my whereabouts.”
She said angrily, “No word-games, sorcerer. It isn’t the time for them. I knew your lodging, in fact. Am I currently to believe you my son’s errand boy?”
“If you wish. I am here with Yashlom to get you safe from the Heavenly City to Pillar Hill.”
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“By the Flame,” she said She stared away from me, frowning. “I don’t like you in this enterprise.”
“You trusted me before. Trust me again. Sorem lives; I gather you know why. But when you are alone with him, lady, since you misunderstand the news you get here, you should ask him what happened on the dueling field.”
“If Yashlom vouches for you, which he does by his presence, I will accept that.”
“You are too gracious,” I said.
“When I am gracious, young man,” she said, “you should beware.”
And she went away across the terrace, speaking briefly to Yashlom as she passed him, then going up a little stair to some apartments above.
It was a fine night and the view was pleasing, but to sit and wait there on the whims of capricious females suited neither of us particularly.
Yashlom maintained his calmness, but his eyes had begun to fidget if his hands did not. For me, I soon got up and paced about.
It was not a long sojourn, though, for suddenly the Masrian girl came running down the colonnade, red cheeked and merry, with a story of Crimson Palace guards sprawled among the bushes, apparently drunk. Isep, the bronze girl, came behind more slowly with a face like stone, and I pondered if they had had to give something more than wine, these two, that the Masrian liked to give and the bronze girl did not. Both went up to the rooms above, but did not linger. Presently three boys came out, who you realized were women when the light caught them in a certain way. Malmiranet and her girls in male clothing, and carrying nothing.
“Madam, these ladies,” said Yashlom.
“Do you expect I would leave Nasmet and Isep here when I have left, to endure whatever punishment that hog and his heir might vent on them? You observe that we have no fripperies to burden you. We’re ready, and will make no fuss.”
“We must use the Stair and the well,” Yashlom said.
“Of course. Why do you think we are in breeches? Come, come. Why this delay?”
“You carry nothing. Is there no jewel you want to take?” I said.
“Against my poverty? I am supposing that Sorem will get my riches back for me.” And she turned, and led our way for us through the colonnade into the outer court.
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Her tame guard, fat Porsus, came shambling over, and kneeled down, at her feet, and gazed at her with such canine devotion you would take him for her dog.
“The carriage has already gone through the gate, madam, as you instructed, empty, but otherwise just as on the other night. The gate guard pocketed the bribe, but I judge the information has already been relayed to the Palace. The heir’s men will be out to follow you, as they think, in the carriage.”